Christmas Decorating

We are all decorated for Christmas!

Tobie bought me an early Birthday present (don't worry you will all get your chance, my birthday is after we return from Africa). It is a beautiful tree decoration with NOEL on it and he couldn't resist.

Today we had school. Dale's class is giving sermons (today was weddings) and my class is learning about Relations so I guess we are teaching the same thing. For the computer geeks, I am next taking on Asymptotic Functions and Big O. I handed back the tests from Friday and they didn't appear too disappointed some did well; some not so well. They also turned in some major homework so I will be busy grading that for the next couple of days. My only frustration is that the copy machines are either busy or out of toner and it is difficult to get things copied unless I can get them turned in a couple of days in advance. (Which I guess is really my fault).

I am also talking individually to each of my Thesis students about their projects. Most of them have picked topics way to broad (eg. "Improving Primary and Secondary Education in Tanzania") and I have to nudge them to focus on something they can complete in a semester. They agree once I give them ideas on some "smaller" challenges to research.

One of the interesting things that happens here is at least once an evening the doorbell rings and it is someone looking for a person or someone apparently asking for money. We had one of each tonight. I don't know what the guards at the gate do, but perhaps these folks have been here before and expect someone else. It is a bit frustrating but we have taken the rather harsh policy of no handouts. I just hope we are not turning away someone who has come to this apartment when other tenants are more receptive. We have discussed this with some of the staff at the diocese and they recommend that we not hand out money. But the doorbell (which is really an annoying beast) rings almost every night with something.

We are all ready to return home: Annica has presents bought for all of you, Caleb has to get home to recover from soccer injuries, Dale misses his dog, Tobie misses his Grandma, Carrie is out of chocolate, Sharon has no more room in her (and my) suitcase, and I ditto all of the above. We are starting to count down the days.